[OptimalTates]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1535273241014677506

Now that Bergin is following the lead and calling for Mendicino to resign, those quotes in Poilievre appear to be the smoking gun quotes. Unfortunately the gun is a prop and they brought in a smoke machine.

https://parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44...ing-7/evidence

When they talk about RCMP Brenda Lucki not asking for the Emergencies Act to be invoked, while true (and which I bolded in her response below), here is a more accurate view of what she provided to the special joint committee (though if you care enough to be calling for Mendicino to resign I would argue just watch the whole thing):
All quotes from Brenda Lucki:

On February 14, the Government of Canada provided law enforcement with additional tools. The measures enacted under the Emergencies Act provided all police officers across the country—not just the RCMP—with the ability to deal with blockades and unlawful public assemblies. The emergency measure regulations supplemented existing authorities and provided new instruments for law enforcement to address these illegal blockades.
Let's look at some concrete examples.
First, police were able to maintain a secure perimeter throughout the national capital region, and refuse entry to individuals travelling to the illegal protest with the intent of participating. Second, supporting an illegal assembly was also prohibited, and police had the enforcement authority to arrest individuals who continued to supply fuel, food and other materials to an area of an unlawful assembly. Third, there were new powers to compel individuals to provide essential goods and/or services for the removal, towing and storage of vehicles and equipment. I delegated these powers to the OPP, which used them to secure needed equipment to clear the streets of Ottawa.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said, “when they did invoke the act”.
We spoke about it. I don't have the exact date in front of me, but I would say within the week before, when I was given the situational reports, there were discussions and various talks about the Emergencies Act—

You referred to how we resolved these situations. Within RCMP jurisdiction, we obviously had the benefit of hindsight after what happened in Ottawa, and there were times when we actually would have used it if it had been invoked earlier.

I can't speak specifically to any advice that was done in cabinet. What I can say is that each and every day during the convoy I provided a situational report of what happened from—

No. What I can say is that especially in the Ottawa context, what we did is that we tried to reduce the footprint of the number of people there via conversations through our liaison teams, police liaison teams. We tried to reduce the footprint and to get people to be motivated to leave. Of course, there were people who left after the weekends, but again, a lot of people would show up during the week. There was a group who never left the entire time. There were authorities within the Emergencies Act that served as motivators and as deterrents to people coming back in.

First, most of any of the discussions that we had were within the deputy minister community, so of course there were representatives from Customs, Transport, Public Safety—I'm trying to think who else—anybody who sort of had parts of the situation..... I think it was PCO and Justice. So we would discuss—

I have no idea what would trigger it. All I know is that I provided on-site advice from the situational awareness for the decision-makers on what was happening on the ground in all police jurisdictions from coast to coast to coast.

No, I did not, but what I can say is that the Emergencies Act did give us the tools that we needed—

We were not.... It wasn't really the police that were.... We're not in the position to provide influence on the government as to when and where they invoke a certain act. For us, it was about keeping Canadians safe in Ottawa, and when they did bring in the act, it definitely provided us some authorities that helped reduce the footprint so that we could do a safer enforcement.

Well, I can tell you from an RCMP perspective, for example, we were in the midst of trying to enforce at Coutts, for example, and we could not enforce because we couldn't access any tow trucks. We weren't able to do the enforcement that we needed on the days that we wanted to enforce because we had no authorities to force the tow truck drivers to assist, and all of them refused to provide the service.

Well, in Coutts, we couldn't use tow trucks. They wouldn't come to our.... We asked them to come to assist us, but they would not. We looked to the military as well and, in the end, what ended up happening was that the Government of Alberta purchased some tow trucks, which was just at the onset of the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
We were trying to enforce far before then, but in order to enforce we had to remove both the people and the equipment, but we didn't have tow trucks to move the equipment.

No. We actually reached out to various police agencies when there was talk about some of the authorities that they were proposing, and of course we were consulted. We were the ones who would be using those authorities, so we were consulted to see if these would be of any use to police in the context of the “freedom convoy”.

That's a great question. It's all about reducing the footprint so that we can enforce safely.
We could maintain and reinforce the perimeter. It provided us and other policing partners an ability to restrict travel; prevent children from being brought into the situation; secure necessary equipment, such as tow trucks; and ensure that we could cut off financial support and other assistance, such as gas, for this unlawful blockade.

Under the Criminal Code, you can charge somebody. There were tow truck companies that were receiving funds through the protest not to assist us. Some of the individuals in the companies were very worried about their safety and their livelihood, and they were experiencing a lot of harassment. Even under a charge, it would go to court. Under the Emergencies Act, it compelled them to provide the service immediately. That was the sort of cover that they could use. They were no longer making the decision themselves. They were being forced under the authority of the Emergencies Act, and even then—

Absolutely. The provisions granted the RCMP and policing partners new authorities that would reduce that footprint because there is no way we could enforce with the maximum amount of people there.
There was a large group that refused to leave. No matter what things were tried by the police, there was a group that just would not leave. We needed ways to first of all stop additional people from coming in. Therein lay the perimeter that was put around the city. We would stop convoys that were heading from across the country. They would be stopped on roadsides or on roads coming towards Ottawa.
We also motivated people to leave by providing the information to the banks. We had one example where one individual said he must leave because he got a call from his spouse and was told that their bank account was frozen. He needed to leave or else they wouldn't be able to access

I updated PMO specifically. I updated the government, which included the Prime Minister, on the situation across the country.

No. When they had decided on some of the authorities, they consulted with the RCMP as well as other police agencies to see if any of those authorities they were contemplating would assist us and if they would be useful.

While selective quotes, you can get a pretty good picture of what was actually happening from the RCMP's point of view and how they believe they could not find a quick solution to the blockade without the Emergencies Act. Lucki was clear she had engaged with conversations prior to the Emergencies Act being invoked, how she kept the government informed of the situation, how she would have used the tools in the act earlier if it had been invoked earlier, and how they were required to successfully end the blockade.

Of course the police agencies are going to say they needed it to end the blockades (or else they would be admitting to a police faliure), but it's pretty obvious that the government did indeed receive advice from the RCMP. Shocking.